Double Negative career profiles

If you want to pursue a career in Visual Effects and have questions about particular job, for example being a texture artist, this is where your questions can be answered. An acclaimed international visual effects vendor Double Negative has made series of interviews with their artists across the board. This one is about texturing and person interviewed is experienced texturing artist Phil Young, who worked at MPC for few years and now has been at DNEG London for another couple of years, working on projects like Iron Man and Dark Knight. Browse through other disciplines shown on the left side of the page:
http://www.dneg.com/career_profiles/career_profile_-_texture_artist_545.html

Airmech Prime

Some news from the gaming world:

Beta Bundle is over in AirMech, it`s Prime time! A replacement for Beta Bundle offer to AirMech players. Main features are having all current and future airmech classes without buying them for Kudos or Diamonds. Plus ton of diamons 30 day boosts.
Lot of things going on with AirMech, this indie game which is Free to Play and considering its high quality and fun factor, it`s quite amazing. One could say with the strong community and frequent patches, this game is a living element. It`s one of those new games developped along a popular model not as a product, but as a service to players and their community. If you like action strategy or even if never played it, you should give it a go. Best way to get it is on Steam, but it can be downloaded from Chrome too.

Fabric Engine crowd simulation

If you are interested in crowd simulation make sure you check out the latest module which Fabric Engine team has been working on. Very impressive.


Creation: Horde - Rigs from Fabric Engine on Vimeo.

Also check out other modules, based what field in CG content you are interested in. They also work on Tree (plant) generation, Muscle Skin deformation and so on:

http://fabricengine.com/creation-modules/

VFX pipelines

I was just making a compilation of articles about pipelines at different VFX facilities for a friend. So I am putting it here as well for anyone interested in this very undocumented subject (almost nothing about it is taught at universities, for most graduates "pipeline" is a mystery):

tutorial on a simple rigging/animation pipeline (copy of an old classic tutorial by P.Thuriot and E.Miller):

http://www.scritube.com/limba/engleza/software/Advanced-Character-Pipeline-an164243209.php

MPC:

http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/mpc

Tippet Studio

http://asvlabs.at.ua/publ/17-1-0-28

Weta creature pipeline:

http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2011/Volume-34-Issue-9-Dec-Jan-2012-/Animation-Evolution.aspx

Weta skinning system:

http://www.fxguide.com/fxguidetv/fxguidetv-166-weta-digitals-tissue-system/

Framestore animation pipeline, body/facial rigging:

(starts 20:35)

http://youtu.be/hNKHa5hyHbU

Commercial Pipeline Systems:

http://www.shotgunsoftware.com/

http://www.ftrack.com/

https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/katana/

Yeti used to generate feathers in Ftrack pipeline

I really like this demonstration of using Yetti in production. Swedish VFX company FIDO has made this realistic CG falcon and used new software for Fur and Feathers - Yetti. See how they handled this challenging task making realistic bird:
http://rendermansite.pixar.com/view/Fido

Yetti website:
http://peregrinelabs.com/

Also, the pipeline used at Fido is built on Ftrack. Similar to Shotgun, this is online commercial VFX production and asset management system. They currently offer less features but have also currently lower pricing then Shotgun, which is interesting. See bottom of the same page.
According to ftrack on twitter, they are working on better integration and some publishing tools for common VFX applications like Maya and Nuke and even adding support for RV as review system and Dropbox for storing assets and shots online.

Ftrack website:
http://www.ftrack.com/

CG Student Awards 2013

CG Student Awards are here again! Follow the link for registration below:
cgstudentawards.com

Alkay in development of new CG feature

After sucessfull delivery of their first full CG feature film "Ctyrlistek" ("Quarterfoil"), Prague based animation production Alkay is in development of new film. With well known czech producer Ondrej Trojan they work on "Lichozrouti" (tricky to translate, "Sockeaters"?). The art design looks very interesting and non-hollywod-like. This is what I like behind this, it`s more like czech traditional puppet movie. What can be the challenge is the conversion to 3d rendered characters. The puppets include soft hairy cloth and sometimes dense medium long hair. The faces look very stylized and cartoony needing other setup then a classic human FACS based layout. There is some concept art already on their website along with the first animation/lookdev test:
http://www.alkay.cz/content/text/cz/?projekty/celovecerni_filmy/lichozrouti

I should also mention that Alkay is hiring for this production (not sure if relocation to Prague and EU working VISA is required for all positions):
http://www.alkay.cz/content/text/cz/?kariera

R+H Thaiwan

Interesting, R+H will be based on focustaiwan.tw news portal opening new branch in Thaiwan:

R_H_thaiwan_article